So eventually spring seems to have arrived and the sun has come out, three days before midsummer’s eve! This has meant that as soil the soil warms up lawns have started to grow well,  the nutrition that’s been applied in the last few weeks has started to become available to the plants and things will start to green up nicely.

This also means that we have been able to take care of broadleaf weeds which is something we can’t do when the temperatures remain cold and so you will now see soon after visits the weeds start to disappear although you might be surprised to see some of them trying to flower just before they disappear which often makes people think that we fed them rather than killed them. This is because all plants will have a desperate attempt to produce some seed whilst they still have the chance and I often get calls from people concerned so the ways look healthier after we visited but if you give them a few days they will soon disappear.

Having had one of the wettest winters on record which went on for a very long time, and as you will be aware with a substantial amount of rain,  many soils have slumped and in many cases become compacted.

There’s not anything we can do to prevent this when the soil is wet because any intervention would cause more damage, but we are now in a position where we are able to aerate soils and the link below takes you to a short video which explains a little more about this. 

Conditions are now great for carrying out aeration which we will be starting in the very near future so if this is of interest to you, please drop me a line and we can maybe have a chat about it or get you booked in.

Moving forwards, we are applying controlled release fertilisers so that these will not volatilise if the weather becomes warm and dry, but they will basically sit on the surface until they get the right temperatures and moisture levels to activate. We will also carry on applying herbicides as we will see another flush of weeds as the soil temperatures rise. This is because you have many many weed seeds stored in the soil, some of which will last decades which is why sometimes you see a flush of weeds when you don’t expect them. When weeds flower at this time of year, and this may be from hedgerows, verges, fields etc, more seeds will be blown into your garden onto the flower beds and the lawn and these also are a source of fresh weeds.

I hope the above is of use and please do let me know if you have any more queries.